Insight
by Chiwibel
Summary: Fenris needs healing, Anders complies.


First of all, I apologize for my English. Second, these are examples of extremely dumbed down versions cognitive techniques (socratic questioning and the downward arrow). I couldn't get to write anything else until I did this and hell… I have a Tranquil fic I need to start properly. B y e

 **Insight.**

…

"Maybe if you just stopped moving so much and kept still for five minutes the pain would go faster".

"It won't, mage. Not this time".

"Are the markings getting worse?"

Fenris surely did not expect Anders being worried for him, of all people, but he was in too much pain to care at the moment. He let himself fall down on the cot he was sitting on, letting out a sight that carried the weight of all his worries together. Fenris thought there was no point in trying to explain his situation to the mage.

But he also wouldn't lose anything doing so, Anders kept an admirable level of professionalism in his clinic and it would be a lie to say it was the first time he found himself in similar scenarios. He looked at the ceiling and spoke.

"It's not the markings, at least not the ones over my skin".

"What do you mean?"

"They hurt underneath my skin, inside my chest, inside my head, my mind. Pulsating, beating, driving me to madness".

Silence. Closing his eyes in disappointment (now the mage chose to shut his mouth, when he'd have appreciated the distraction) Fenris went to sleep the pain away.

Or he would have. Anders set a hand above his forehead and his chest and Fenris could feel them and their heat all over his body even though they weren't touching him nor spreading any kind of magic.

"Keep still, please. No magic without your permission, I promise".

Fenris believed him and did as asked. He breathed.

"Tell me more, about the pain".

"It's a constant reminder of what I have lost and what I'll never get, screaming from my insides things I… I am not ready to accept".

"Such as? If you don't mind". Anders' tone gentler than ever, than Fenris thought possible. His voice broke when he answered.

"How I'll never get freedom, truly, how I lost the first real family I remember to Danarius and to myself. And how I'll never reach the one in my fleeting memories".

A pressure on his forehead, the mage's hand covering it and his eyelids. A thumb rubbing his cheek slowly.

"Do you believe that to be true?"

"Yes, that is the way things are supposed to be".

"Then why do you keep fighting? Why don't you just give up?"

His battle for freedom appeared similar and smaller at the same time, compared to a cause he once deemed to ridiculous and unreachable and yet the mage still fought. Fenris wished to have felt hate and repulsion instead of the warmth bubbling in his chest at the thought.

"Why don't you?"

"Possibly for the same reasons and you, answer me and we'll know".

Cheeky bastard.

"I dared to do something a slave could never dream of".

"And what may that be, Fenris?"

"I looked up and hoped".

A pressure on his chest. He breathed slower.

"There's your answer". Fenris could hear, could feel, the mage's smile against his very being. He smiled too, feeling Anders' thumb against the border of his lips. "Now that's something I don't see everyday".

"Don't push your luck, mage".

"Why would you keep hoping for a lost cause?"

"It's not a..!"

"Keep still".

"… 'Lost' cause. I'd like to think there is... a chance".

"I've know you to be many things, Fenris, most of them not exactly good mind you, and fatalist is not one of them. That's kind of my think, you know". Anders laughed and the memory of his dimples appeared on Fenris' mind, and then the rest of his face, as if he could finally see Anders like he never did before in that moment, when he was covering his eyes.

"Is it?", he asked, trying to swallow down his own laughter.

"Not really but you get my point. Now, did Danarius ever take care of the markings?".

What a novelty, to not feel uncontrollable rage when hearing his former master's name. Fenris felt like he was floating upon clouds.

"They only hurt if Hadriana, may she rot until the end of times, or if Danarius willed them to do so". The memories, always unpleasant, brought a bad taste to his tongue. When the mage spoke again, his voice echoed around the wall of the clinic and his head. Dizziness and, as impossible it might have been, steadiness surrounded Fenris.

"Open your eyes, Fenris".

Fenris did, quicker that he should have it seemed. Moving the muscles around his eyelids ached and while there were only a couple of burning candles close, the light was blinding for his eyes. It was distraction enough to make him realize something later than sooner. Something important, maybe. He would think of it another day, if ever.

One way or another, Anders was sitting on the nearest cot, legs crossed and finger entwined over them. No shoes, no coat, not even his hair tie; in the candlelight he looked like he himself was a spirit and not housing one, as the abomination Fenris had to force himself to remember lately.

When had he moved? When had he gotten away from the elf? Had he even been close to him at some point? Fenris knew how to read bodies better than words, and Anders' body practically screamed that it had been in that position for half an hour _at least_.

Had he fallen sleep?

"May I treat your markings now?" Anders asked.

"What if...", his voice hoarse, throat burning "if I say no?"

"Then I won't. To have magic casted upon them used to be out of your control and it still is, when we are in battle. But it doesn't have-"

"To be that way, not always. Now I can gain some level of control and _freedom_ over that… Thanks to _you_ , who would have thought".

"How wrong you are", Anders said, laughing lightly. The mage stood up from the bed and walked to sit at the border of the one Fenris was still laying on, making him sit up to and leaving them both looking forward into the other's eyes, amber against green. "Thank your thickheaded self this time. I'm surely am not the only healer in the world, I'll admit being the most handsome one but the only one with the right to make this choice for you is yourself".

Fenris looked down at his arms and the markings, dull and numb over his skin. The mage had not used magic until that moment and would not unless he wanted him to, so why had he felt that way?

"What was all that? Before, when you were sprouting nonsense".

"Nonsense he says! Don't you feel better? Inside?"

In fact, he did.

"There are wounds not even magic can reach...", Anders continued. "And there are more ways to heal besides magic, I wouldn't be a good healer if I didn't know at least some more. Now, may I?"

The mage raised his hand, palm open, as an invitation, and on his face the same smile Fenris saw in his mind danced.

Fenris took his had and spoke, "you may".


End file.
